4, August 2020
Biya Regime Seals Church That Claims COVID-19 Does Not Exists 0
This music is played on loudspeakers by a group of seven members of the Tabernacles of Freedoms Ministries in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.
The four women and three men move from house to house and street to street calling themselves end time evangelists. Thirty-two-year-old Prudence Mayah, the group leader is referred to by church members as sister.
She said last month God revealed to them through their pastor Ngoa Atangana that nations are wasting the time and resources being spent on fighting COVID-19.
“We are asking everybody to go on their knees and pray and know that there is nothing as coronavirus,” Mayah said. “It is God’s punishment for wrongdoing, for the several wars people are fighting in the world. A man marries a man and a woman marries a woman, so God is very angry.”
Among the 45 homes the group said it visited on Monday is that of 49-year old farmer Lionnie Fotso. Fotso said she believes in the teachings of the small church, and will follow its orders not to wear masks.
Fotso said Tabernacles of Freedoms Ministries has just confirmed her thoughts that COVID-19 is a hoax. She said no member of a group of 300 farmers where she belongs has ever attested that she saw a COVID-19 patient and none of them has been sick of the so-called coronavirus.
COVID-19 is very real, killing more than one million people worldwide since December. There have been more than 17,000 cases in Cameroon alone, and about 400 deaths in the Central African state.
But that doesn’t stop the Tabernacles church, which has about 300 followers and reaches more people with broadcasts on Yaounde radio stations.
Last week, Governor Naserie Paul Bea of Cameroon’s Center Region said three students refused to take their secondary school certificate exams because they were asked to wear masks.
When the student’s parents were asked to come to school and convince their children to wear the masks, the parents chose to take the children home. The parents said they were members of the church.
The governor said he has ordered the church to follow instructions on COVID-19 prevention or be arrested. ‘We have already closed down this church for anti-government policies,” Bea said. “You can imagine, some of our youths have refused vaccinations. Some of them are now refusing barrier measures (against COVID-19). Some of them refuse even to go to the hospitals, (saying) that if you die, they can pray and you come back to life.”
Even with the closure of the church, members have continued organizing their daily prayers and meetings in front of the sealed building.
The church says it also sends out fifteen groups of seven on a daily basis, to preach its erroneous message about COVID-19.
Source: VOA
28, August 2020
Cardinal Arinze says cause of beatification of Dr. Bernard Nsokika Fonlon could be introduced 0
UNFORGOTTEN
I hold Dr. Bernard Nsokika FONLON in very high regard.
I first got to know him in Bigard Memorial Seminary, Enugu, Nigeria, in the years 1953 and 1954. He was in second year theology when I entered that Major Seminary in September 1953. When he and his classmates were due to be ordained subdeacons in December 1954, the Seminary authorities and his Bishop decided not to admit him to major orders.
As a seminarian, I saw Bernard as a learned seminarian. I still remember how with lustre he sang “Audi Benigne Conditor” during Vespers in Lent. He took no breakfast. When other seminarians were at breakfast, he was studying, we believed he was at Latin and Greek!
During holidays and in the years after he had to leave Bigard Memorial Seminary, he used to visit one of the Nigerian priests, Monsignor Peter Meze-Idigo who was very kind to him, as he also was to seminarians in general. Once during those visits by Fonlon to Monsignor Meze at Dunukofia, my parish, I took Bernard to visit my parents at Eziowelle and my father, a good wine tapper, gave him good palm wine which he took gladly. I still remember that my mother tried to converse with him in Igbo and was surprised that Fonlon did not know how to speak Igbo. I had to inform my innocent mother that Igbo is not the only language spoken in Africa!
I lost track of Fonlon in the years when he worked for a Doctorate in Ireland and another Doctorate in France. The next time I met him was during the Nigeria-Biafra war, probably in 1968 or 1969. It was a quick meeting because we were both passengers in Air France flying to Paris from Douala. At that time, Dr Fonlon was Minister of Communications in the Camerun and I was Archbishop of Onitsha.
After that Nigerian civil war, I visited Dr Fonlon in Yaounde. It may have been around the year 1972. I first visited Archbishop Paul Verdzekov in Bamenda. Then I flew from Buea to Yaounde. Fonlon met me at the airport. I stayed about two days with him. I then learned that he was no longer Minister in the Government because President Ahidjo called him and explained: Bernad, I regret that we can no longer retain you in the cabinet because you put the rest of us ministers to shame, because you are your own driver and you drive an old car.
My unforgettable memory of my stay with Fonlon in his flat was that one day his sister prepared a fou-fou lunch for both of us. During lunch, Dr. Fonlon was so absorbed in our conversation (which was more me listening to his wisdom) that I finished my lunch; he then put together his fork and knife, put his plate aside and continued his learned discourse. He forgot that he had not eaten anything yet! I have never in my life of 87 years reached that level of detachment from creatures.
Dr Bernard Nsokika Fonlon was a man of high ideals. He prayed. He said the Latin Breviary daily. He loved the Church. He was not bitter that he was not ordained a priest. In my view, it was an administrative mistake of his superiors that he was not ordained. It seems to me that they did not understand enough. He was the type of professional intellectual who may seem not the routine parish priest. As a university priest, he could have answered many needs of the Church. However, as a lay person, he also did much good. The Camerounians are the best placed to make a judgement on this. He lived a celibate life. When I visited him in 1972, I saw that he loved the Breviary.
In my view, the Cause of Beatification of Dr. Bernard Nsokika Fonlon could be introduced. I am happy to be writing these lines on his anniversary of his death.
May he rest in the peace of Christ.
+ Francis Card. Arinze
Vatican City, 26 August, 2020.